How the Spanish Civil War Became Europe’s Battlefield

Overview

Explore Spain’s brutal 1936-1939 conflict—a prelude to WWII—in this 24-lecture course on ideological divides, international intervention, and Franco’s dictatorship.

Course No. 30470

Professor Pamela Radcliff reveals how this “dress rehearsal for World War II” pitted fascists, communists, anarchists, and democracies against each other on Spanish soil.

Course Content

Origins & Outbreak

1. Two Spains Divided (29 min)
   • Urban vs. rural, secular vs. Catholic tensions

2. 1936 Military Coup (28 min)
   • Franco’s failed putsch sparks total war

3. Summer of Terror (31 min)
   • Mass executions and church burnings

International Proxy War

4. Fascist Intervention (27 min)
   • Hitler and Mussolini arm Franco

5. Soviet Aid to Republicans (27 min)
   • Stalin’s flawed support for the left

6. International Brigades (28 min)
   • Hemingway’s volunteers join the fight

Battlefronts & Atrocities

7. Guernica’s Destruction (27 min)
   • First civilian bombing inspires Picasso

8. Madrid Under Siege (29 min)
   • Urban warfare and starvation tactics

9. Postwar Repression (33 min)
   • Franco’s mass executions and exile waves

Legacy & Memory Wars

10. Franco’s 40-Year Dictatorship (28 min)
    • Censorship and “pact of forgetting”

11. 21st-Century Reckoning (32 min)
    • Unearthing mass graves and contested history